Cricket's minnows deserve their chance

Now, this is more like it! Pakistan hosting Afghanistan and England hosting Holland – arrangements that look set to bolster claims to get the “world” back into the 2015 World Cup.

Add to that, Kenya welcoming Uganda and the cricketing globe starts shrinking that little bit further again.

Where to next? And is there a clue here for Test nations to take the Associates seriously through bilateral series?

Judging by the past week, there’s hope, surely, for something greater, if a bit of thought is applied in the coming years.

According to a report on CricInfo.com, the Afghani national team will take part in three one-dayers against Pakistan’s second XI in Lahore, Faisalabad and Rawalpindi in July.

It gets better. The Afghanis have already asked if the Pakistanis would consider playing a reciprocal match at Nangarhar later in the year.

And a brand-new Afghani provincial series will be hosted in the Pakistan city of Peshawar.

Brilliantly co-operative stuff there, and perhaps something that the likes of Australia and the West Indies in particular could learn from.

How about if Cricket Australia expanded the Big Bash League Twenty20 series to encompass Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Papua New Guinea?

Or if the West Indies bothered to invite Canada over for a couple of ODIs each year?

England are already ahead of them – Holland, Ireland and Scotland all play in various guises as part of the English county tournaments and perhaps Italy or Denmark could be considered under this format, too.

England already host occasional games against Ireland, Scotland and Wales as well.

How about a four-way series each summer between England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales?

Again, it’s not going to cost anyone too much in effort terms for a big reward in international terms.

Dutch skipper Peter Borren told CricInfo this week that there was huge value in the Netherlands’ getting a hit or two in the English 40-over league.

The Dutch and Ireland are now united in pressing their World Cup case, wrote Andy McGlashan. Continued victories in the domestic sphere should go some way towards piling up handy evidence to that end.

Finally, Kenya will bring in two Ugandan teams into an expanded domestic schedule in Nairobi, wrote Martin Williamson.

Again, all it took was some fresh thinking, and yet another nation gets the chance to play more cricket at a time when the ICC seems intent on cutting teams out of the sport’s bigger picture.

I recall there was a time in the 1990s when former Windies captain Clive Lloyd even dared to suggest that the ICC should stage more regional events – and they could begin quite simply: South Africa/Zimbabwe/Kenya, he said.

It never happened, but why not? It would have been terrific.

Cricket fans should gladly embrace such moves – and dare to dream big and see them as stepping-stones to further the intergration of the game.

West Indies v Canada, Canada v United States, England v Holland, Italy v Denmark, Afghanistan v Pakistan, Sri Lanka v Oman, India v Nepal, Kenya v Uganda, Namibia v Tanzania, Fiji v Papua New Guinea, Hong Kong v Singapore.

Not as endless seven-ODI marathons, but as neatly-added sides to the main Test series events.

Maybe bilateral cricket has found a new niche place on the calendar for second-tier nations? And it could all be done right now. All it takes is a spark of imagination, people…